Hat in Hand
by mascaret
Summary: Done with his time on the stage, Charlie Carson wants to return to his old way of life but returning to the Abbey he finds a less than cheery reception - and it seems he is not the only one to have fallen in his Lordship's favor.
1. Chapter 1

A/N I never did manage to find a beta for this. If anyone has a little free time and is interested let me know. There are 3 chapters. Will include adult material.

 _Hat in Hand_

"You ran off!"

Contrite, Charlie put his head down.

"You left here on your half day to go to the fair two _years_ ago and you never came back! No month's notice! No goodbyes! Not even a letter left behind on your pillow for me to find!"

As Lord Grantham stood, Charlie had to tilt his head up to meet his Lordship's angry gaze. There weren't many men left that Charlie still had to look up at to see eye to eye.

"And now you have the audacity to show back up on _my_ doorstep hat in hand looking for what?"

His Lordship's level of vitriol was unexpected. Charlie was hardly the first footman to have run off in the night, yet the usually genial – to anyone who wasn't his own offspring - Lord Grantham seemed absolutely enraged even after all this time.

"I just wanted an audience, My Lord. I wanted to apologize."

"To what end? You cannot really expect to again find employment here! Because such disloyalty and lack of integrity will _not_ be tolerated."

"No, my Lord. Of course not." Charlie tried to explain why he had felt the need to come. "It's just I've come to feel awful about having left Downton. Especially, the way that I did. I wanted to apologize to you and to Lady Grantham for -"

His mentioning of Lady Grantham did _not_ go over well. "- Your patron saint is not here to save you!"

Lady Grantham had always had a soft spot for him – and to be quite honest him for her. Lord and Lady Grantham had attended the funeral for his mother after the puerile fever had claimed her. His father had Charlie's stillborn baby sister buried in the same coffin not to save money – though that was always a concern – but because Lady Grantham suggested if it were her she would want it that way.

"No, Milord. I didn't expect she would."

After the funeral in her very own carriage she had taken Charlie home to the Abbey and given him a place there so that his father would not have to send him to his mother's sister who lived too far away for his father, the groom, to visit even on his half days.

Staring with a look of absolute dread at his own young wife who more than five years into their marriage – long after the entire village had given her up as barren - had finally succeeded in falling pregnant, Lord Grantham had offered not a word through it all.

"You are a disgrace!"

It would never do to admit it, but Charlie had waited until this late in the day to call in the knowledge that Lady Grantham would be home. From inquiries made in the village upon his train's arrival, Charlie knew the Earl was hosting a small dinner party this evening. He had timed his calling to be certain Lady Grantham would be home while not interfering with the timing of the party. Yet, she did not appear to be home – certainly if she were Lord Grantham's shouting would have attracted her attention by now.

"Your mere presence here offends. I want you ... gone!" The Earl seemed to almost choke on that last word.

Her absence, his Lordship's air of unhappiness, his uncharacteristic acrimoniousness ... Charlie was beginning to get a rather unsettling feeling. "My Lord ... where is Lady Grantham?"

Angrily, Lord Grantham lashed out. "I told you! She's not here! She's ... " His expression contorted and again his Lordship's voice caught on the word. " ... gone."

The defeated way Lord Grantham sank into his chair with his head in his hands made Charlie think that Lord Grantham did not mean to Downton Village or Ripon or even London.

But no surely if something had happened to the Earl's pretty young wife someone would have mentioned the news to him upon his arrival. But then he had been gone nearly two years and what would have been new news to him wouldn't necessarily have been news to anyone living in the village.

Charlie's voice trembled as entirely out of line, he asked again. "My Lord, where is Lady Grantham?"

Head in his hands, Lord Grantham's broad shoulders shook, but offered Charlie no answers.

Lord Grantham's bellowing had been so loud that neither of them had heard the front door's opening.

While the Lord Grantham that Charlie remembered was seldom one to raise his voice the same could not be said of Lady Grantham.

At the sound of her voice coming from the front hall, Lord Grantham picked up his head. He moved from the room at an ungentlemanly pace. Confused, Charlie followed after.

Nanny must have made some sort of remark about the condition in which the Grantham children were being returned to her because Lady Grantham lit into her. Charlie's heart soared listening to the melodious sound of Lady Grantham putting the other woman in her place.

"Then it would seem you will need to bathe them both before and after I take them out. If you feel I cause you too much work I assure you I can _greatly_ reduced it."

"You are late! You should have been home hours ago!"

Charlie was startled. Lady Grantham spoke acerbicly as often as not to anyone and everyone including his Lordship, but Charlie had never heard Lord Grantham speak sharply to her Ladyship.

Seeing that Lord Grantham was already in a foul mood, Nanny was quick to pick up Lady Rosamund and usher the little Lord Downton up the staircase to the nursery and out of their father's presence.

"Why did you not take Nanny with you when you went out?" Lord Grantham demanded.

Raising her voice loud enough to be sure Nanny would hear her, Lady Grantham answered. "Because I don't like Nanny."

"What happened to your dress?"

Not interested in making sure Nanny heard the answer to that question, Lady Grantham answered at a more reasonable volume. "I bought the children each an ice cream before we left for home. I knew we were running late so I let them take it in the carriage - _not_ one of my more brilliant ideas. The carriage hit a spot in the road. Robert dropped his."

"Yes, I can see. And to reward him for ruining your dress you what? Turned back and got him another one?"

Rather than continue to argue with his Lordship, Lady Grantham turned to him.

Unlike her husband, she didn't seem put off by his presence. "Oh good, Charlie, you're back. How was the fair?"

Pulling out her hat pin, Lady Grantham took off her hat. She handed it to him as if he had been gone his allotted half day and not nearly two years. There was a touch of silver in her auburn locks that he couldn't recall previously.

"Not as enjoyable as I thought it would be, Milady." Charlie admitted holding her hat in his hands.

Managing with her tone to make him feel like she was looking down at him despite their height differences, she warned him. "You'll understand if we don't allow you any more half days when the fair is in town."

Charlie smiled at her graciousness.

Lord Grantham did not. "We are not taking him back! I won't have him again as a second footman in this house!"

"It's true. We haven't any need of further second footmen." Lady Grantham agreed good-naturedly. "We'll have to make you a first footman."

Lord Grantham sputtered. "We will do no such thing!"

Deliberately missing his point, Lady Grantham inquired of her husband. "You think it time Robert had a valet of his own? To me he seems awfully young for it, but I do defer to your judgment."

"You have _always_ been sweet on that boy. From the time you brought him home to be the new boot boy, but no! Absolutely not! We are not hiring him back!"

Charlie wondered just what goings on he had missed at Downton in the past few years as it seemed he was not the only one to have fallen in his Lordship's favor. While once Lady Grantham just glancing too long at something would have had Lord Grantham running like a footman to get it for her, he now criticized and outright refused her.

"Lady Violet, I won't have it. He ran out on me! I won't have such disloyalty in my own house. I won't!"

His Lordship seemed to be quite successfully working himself back up into a lather. "To think after everything that I have done for you! For your family! That you would betray me! That you would just walk away like that!"

Looking quite stricken, Lady Grantham said no more.

Despite her silence, Lord Grantham continued his blustering. "He has brought shame and dishonor upon this household. I won't hear of it. That is final."

"Well that settles it then, doesn't it? Lord Grantham has spoken." Holding out her hand to take back her hat, Lady Grantham admitted defeat. "I shall be terribly disappointed to see you go, Charlie."

"Thank you, milady. You are too kind."

As Charlie moved to take his leave with a coquettish tilt of her head, Lady Grantham made one last attempt. "My Lord ... at least give him a reference. He was the best boot boy we ever had. Your boots haven't had such shine since he was promoted to hallboy."

"The only reference he shall get from me will be sure to highlight his wayward ways!"

Charlie frowned not in disappointment for the lack of reference, but because he had never known such discord between Lord and Lady Grantham.

Her shoulders slumping ever so slightly, Lady Grantham gave up the pretense that she thought Lord Grantham could be swayed.

"And another thing - if you are going to go out alone with the children I would greatly prefer you only take one."

The slump of her shoulders was gone as Lady Grantham coldly asked, "Why?"

When Lord Grantham did not immediately respond, Lady Grantham repeated herself. "Why?"

She continued to press him as if daring him to say the word. "Why Lord Grantham? Do you think me incapable of managing our children?"

Her walking stick by necessity occupying a hand, Lady Grantham would have only one hand available to hold the hand of a child.

Charlie held his breath wondering the extent to which things had changed in his former world.

No one _ever_ dared mention Lady Grantham's condition. It was never even alluded to in Lord Grantham's presence and certainly not brought up by Lord Grantham himself.

The precedent for that and so many other things had been set on the day of Lord and Lady Grantham's wedding when upon seeing the Earl's young bride-to-be for the first time the Archbishop had in his shock been heard to cry out, "My Lord! She is a cripple!"

Demanding satisfaction, an incensed Lord Grantham had challenged the Archbishop to a duel. Neither Lord Grantham's brother, his mother, nor even the Reverend could persuade Lord Grantham of the folly of challenging a man of the cloth to a duel. Lord Grantham refused to back down.

Naturally neither the Archbishop nor the Reverend had been willing to proceed with the ceremony under those circumstances so the proceedings had come to a standstill.

It was the future Countess of Grantham who had defused the situation by claiming to have distinctly heard the Archbishop say the word 'child'. While either word was entirely accurate, only one was deemed offensive.

She had demanded Lord Grantham apologize to the Archbishop immediately so that they might proceed or else send her back to her father's nursery.

With the Archbishop and the the Reverend swearing to the lie on the steps of the church, rather than contradict his bride-to-be, Lord Grantham had withdrawn his demand and the wedding had proceeded.

Charlie held his breath, but even pressed Lord Grantham would not say it.

Squeezing the bridge of his nose, Lord Grantham looked down. "I only meant -"

Lady Grantham cut him off. "- If Lord Grantham will not write you a letter of recommendation _I_ will write you a letter of introduction. I know of several families who would be most pleased to have you. After I change for dinner I will attend to it. Wait in the library."

Solemnly, Charlie nodded.

The fight having quite gone out of him, Lord Grantham tried to start again more calmly. "Lady -"

Looking up, he realized his wife, with the hem or her dress in one hand and using her walking stick with the other, was already a quarter of the way up the staircase. Charlie watched as Lord Grantham again moving at a less than dignified pace went following up after her.

Managing to catch up with her, Lord Grantham tried to put his hand under her elbow. Pulling her arm out of his grasp, she swatted his hand away.

Only as the pair disappeared from view did a crestfallen Charlie head into the library.

 _tbc_

A/N as always reviews are greatly appreciated.


	2. Chapter 2

A/N I never did manage to find a beta for this. If anyone has a little free time and is interested let me know.

 _Hat in Hand_

 _Chapter 2_

Entering her rooms with her, Lord Grantham saw his wife pause just inside the entry. It was easy to see why. Her bed was unmade with both her pillows and all the bedclothes thrown to the floor. Her writing desk was in similar disarray.

Closing the door to Lady Violet's bedroom, chagrined by his own actions while she was out, Lord Grantham went on the offense and reprimanded her. "You really shouldn't let the children play in your rooms."

Continuing forward into the room, she put her hat and walking stick down on her dressing table. Her answer back was somewhat disinterested. "I don't."

No doubt having grown accustom to his mercurial mood swings the past year, she made no mention of his behavior downstairs.

He was not so willing to overlook things. "I didn't appreciate your attempt to use your favors against me downstairs."

Busy removing her gloves, she didn't even turn to look at him. "I'm a woman, my Lord. I cannot hold property. I am not allowed the vote. I haven't any other commodities to trade."

"My dear Countess, you have your father's head for business – which is to say none at all. A commodity has value when it is rare and not frequently offered."

She offered no reaction.

"As you have summoned me to your bed three of the last four nights I would say that the commodity you are seeking to peddle is not so valuable as you believe. I need only learn to braid your hair and we can dispense with your lady's maid entirely in the evenings."

Still nothing.

"I _particularly_ don't care for you doing it in front of one of the servants."

That at last got her attention. Looking over her shoulder at him, she asked. "Am I to take that to mean that you have reconsidered your stance on Charlie?"

Lord Grantham refused. "No! It most certainly does not!"

"I see." With a frown, she again turned her head forward.

As she took a seat and reached to unlace her boot, he knelt down to do it for her.

Shoes removed, she again stood and turned her back to him. "I need to change for dinner. Would you undo my buttons or would you prefer to quarrel in front of my lady's maid?"

Taking a step forward, he began his button work.

She refused to let the matter drop. "If you don't like me attempting to use my favors against you, you shouldn't attempt to refuse me such a simple request."

His fear fueled anger quickly dissipating now that she was restored to him, Lord Grantham answered back less passionately. "It is hardly a simple request this time."

"If you say so."

He rested his hands on her shoulders. "He ran off, Lady Violet. An example needs to be made of him for the other servants. What would that example be if I were to give him back his position?"

Her voice was soft trying to lure him in. "He was there on our wedding day."

"You certainly are sentimental – when it suits your purpose." Lord Grantham countered. "He was a tot sitting on his mother's knee."

"His parents were both very kind to me when I first came to Downton."

"I know." Lord Grantham admitted. Still, he refused to yield.

"So would you suggest I stop allowing you into my bed to increase the value of my commodity?"

"No." He kissed her neck. "I would suggest nothing of the sort."

With only a few buttons accomplished, he abandoned his button work to concentrate his attentions on her neck and the bit of shoulder he had managed to uncover.

He couldn't help but observe. "You've been cuddling Rosamund in the carriage, haven't you? Her sticky fingers give you away."

"She is sweet and pretty and I adore her." Lady Grantham admitted.

"You are pretty and I adore you, but you have never been what I would call sweet."

"Nor have I ever pretended to be. You knew what you were getting when you bought me from my father."

Her words though a hurtful reminder of exactly how he had managed to acquire her were spoken lightly and were indeed fact. Having antagonized her quite enough already today, he bit back the retort - _Do you think you and your family would have fared well in debtor's prison?_ \- that sprang to mind.

Besides, he had no doubt that if anyone could become a success while in debtor's prison it would be his wife who always seemed to do well for herself wherever she went.

Instead, he continued with his observations. "You taste of strawberry ice cream. It's all over your neck."

Lady Grantham moaned appreciatively as her husband sucked at her neck. "Do you like strawberry ice cream?"

"No, but I like you."

"You have a very odd way of showing it at times, my Lord."

"I have offended you." He admitted sadly.

"Several times over and quite deliberately." She pointed out.

Still, turning in his arms, cupping his face, she drew his mouth to hers.

It wasn't until he began pulling pins from her hair, that she pulled back and admonished him. "There isn't time for my maid to redo it before the guests arrive. They will be here any moment and I _still_ need to write Charlie his letter."

Eyes mischievous, she stared at him expectantly.

"Is it really to be quid pro quo?" Lord Grantham asked displeased.

Stepping closer, she began to coyly argue semantics. "Don't think of it as quid pro quo. Think of it as reciprocity. Give in and it would be an overjoyed wife wanting to bring joy to her husband."

When he frowned as she reached for his cufflinks, she paused. "You know, my Lord, if it offends you so much you could always decline my offer on the principle of it."

Lord Grantham made a sound of derision. "We have long since established that I have no principles when it comes to the lengths to which I am willing to go to secure if not your affections than at least a place in your bed."

This time it was her lips turning down. "Are you really still so unsure of my affections?"

Reaching out to stroke her cheek, he didn't answer.

"I am here, am I not?" She pointed out before turning her face so her lips met his hand.

"So you are." By the change in her expression, he knew that his voice had betrayed his wonder.

So that there was no misunderstanding between them, he repeated his earlier sentiments. "Lady Violet, I will not be swayed. Charlie Carson will never again hold a position in this household. _He ran off._ That kind of behavior cannot be tolerated."

Her soft mood evaporated. Again turning her back to him, she gave him an ultimatum. "Finish with my buttons or ring for my maid to do it."

He wasn't a fool. He knew the way that the steel trap that was his wife's mind worked. He knew what she was trying for by allowing him the option to remain, but unwilling to let her out of his sight again quite so soon, he took back up his button work and played along.

She would lead him on, bring him to the precipice and then demand he yield on the matter at hand. Her stratagem was not new.

What was new – since St. Petersburg - was his counteroffensive.

 _tbc_

A/N as always reviews are greatly appreciated.


	3. Chapter 3

A/N The fic was supposed to be only 3 chapters but I never found a beta so I broke the middle long chapter into little bits to make it more manageable to self check.

Total bow chicka bow wow ahead. You have been forewarned.

 _Hat in Hand_

 _Chapter 3_

As he succeeded in removing her gown, he threw the soiled garment to the floor behind him and out of their way.

"The corset needn't come off." She informed him. "It can stay on for tonight."

The waist cincher she currently wore was not a full affair. It ended below her breasts.

"Can it?" Lord Grantham asked as he trailed his hand along the top of her corset brushing the tops of his fingers against the bottoms of her breasts through the thin cotton of her shift.

His hands trailed lightly against the front of her breasts on their way back up to caress her neck and face. Even though he was behind her, with his height advantage, he could see the peaks that were already beginning to form on the front of her shift.

"It works for the dress I am planning to wear."

"I'll leave it on then."

Ghosting a path, his fingers ran from her chin down the length of her arms to her wrists and back up again to end in her hair.

No sooner did he lay a hand on a single hairpin, she spoke. "You may _not."_

Hearing the effort she had to put into trying to make her voice sound steady as she responded belied the sharpness she tried to convey.

"My apologies." He knew she denied him it because it was what he most wanted.

Already unfastening the ridiculous contraption's buckles, he asked. "What about the bustle?"

"It will do for tonight's dress."

"My mistake." His mouth found its way back to her neck as he reached in front of her to undo it's last remaining tie.

Trying to keep his tone light, he asked as if he were just making conversation. "What did you do today with the children?"

He knew the answer – or part of it – having been to the village looking for her once Nanny had come running to him to tattle on his wife.

"We went for a train ride."

"To where?"

She tilted her neck directing him to the places she liked best. "Nowhere really. We were sitting at the teashop near the station watching the trains go by. Robert asked if we could go on one. He didn't care to where. He just likes to ride the train."

Lord Grantham buried his sigh in his wife's hair. He had spent the afternoon and early evening in absolute despair because his wife had to indulge that damned boy's love of trains.

"We rode to the next stop and got off to wait for the next train back. It was delayed."

"Why did you not take Nanny?"

"I knew I would want to cuddle Rosamund in the carriage. I couldn't very well do that with Nanny there."

"And Robert? I don't suppose you managed to withhold your cuddles from him?"

"It was a closed carriage." Was all she could offer him in her defense.

He frowned. "Lady Violet, the boy is already sissy enough."

No doubt realizing that getting bogged down in that conversation again would not serve her current agenda, with only a withering look in response, she moved their exchange along. "Even if I wasn't going to cuddle them I wouldn't have brought Nanny. I have decided not to bring her on carriage rides anymore."

"Why?"

"I told you - I don't like Nanny. She always looks at me with such disapproval."

"She doesn't approve of you." Lord Grantham agreed. "She knows you suckled the children yourself."

Her shift was trapped upon her by her corset, but he was able to pull the neckline down one of her shoulders far enough to free one of her empty breasts. Moving to be in front of her, he himself began suckling.

Her hand in the hair at the back of his head encouraging him, with her tongue she reprimanded him for past transgressions. "What choice did you leave me? With Robert you fired and insulted half a dozen girls from the village. It was that or let them starve!"

Her other hand moved to the back of her own neck to undo the garment's tie. Lowering her shift, she freed her other breast that that one too might receive his attention. His mouth switched sides leaving his fingers to tease the newly abandoned.

"With you suckling them I got a year of having my way with you every night you would have me without fear of repercussions and without needing to pull out to spend myself in the bedclothes."

As she let out the most enthralling little sigh, he promised her. "I'll fire Nanny in the morning."

"No. The children adore her. I just have no interest in taking her with me on carriage rides. What I _would_ like is for you to hire Charlie back."

There was a slight popping noise as he broke the suction of his mouth around her nipple to say it one more time. "No."

Finding his speech not so pleasing as other workings of his mouth, she pressed his lips back into place.

When she made a noise almost akin to a whimper as he again changed sides, thinking he had succeeded in working her into enough of a frenzy with his light touches and the workings of his mouth, he again reached for her hair pins.

He received a rather imperious scolding as she once again caught him. "We travel so much and you speak so many languages. Is the Queen's English really so impossible for you to comprehend?"

When he frowned in frustration she mocked him. "I know to you it must seem such a simple request, but then so is mine."

His hands wandered elsewhere as he moved the attentions of his mouth back to her shoulder and throat. As he sucked on the column of her neck, her voice quite heady with desire, she further admonished him. "Don't linger too long on one spot - you'll leave a mark. I don't want our dinner guests thinking you a lecher."

Her warning was too late on several accounts.

His lips moved to her ear. His voice a low rumble, he addressed her. "My dear Countess, after my locking of the two of us alone in the Reverend's office for twenty minutes immediately following the Archbishop's saying 'man and wife' so that your fickle and feckless father would have no grounds to make good on his threat to annul our marriage I don't believe you would be able to find a man, woman, or child in all of the village who doesn't already _know_ that I am a lecher."

Her laughter turned into a moan as his hands skimmed up along her legs to the edge of her shift.

"My Lord, I don't think it was a sudden illness that kept the Archbishop from being available to baptize either Robert or Rosamund. I think he refused because he truly believes you took my virtue in the Reverend's office."

"I think he refused because he believes you to be the devil incarnate." Lord Grantham countered.

"No matter. I'll get you a new Archbishop." He promised.

"I don't want a new Archbishop, my Lord. I want Charlie."

"Well you are going to have to set your heart upon something else because _that_ is not happening."

"I want another child."

He pulled his hands and lips back as if scalded. There was no humor in his voice. "Oh. You walked me right into that one, didn't you?"

He warned her. "No more of your tricking me into giving you children.

He should leave. He should ring for her maid and he should go. He knew that he should.

Paying no heed to his last words, she turned her back on him and informed him. "You may take the corset off."

But he did not.

Untying the strings of her corset, he began pulling them out of their holes. She lightly reprimanded him. "There are little hooks. My lady's maid has a fit every time you do that."

"Would that your lady's maid had a fit morning, noon, and night."

Finished with the corset, he carelessly tossed it aside for her maid to find and restring.

Only her shift and one other layer yet remained. Already pulled halfway down, her shift could have easily been removed, but he knew it was not yet time.

Instead, he returned to skimming his hands and his lips along her exposed skin to make her tremble.

"My Lord ..."

He draped one of his hands around her waist. The other rested above the soft cotton of her shift on her even softer skin. His head was angled so that his lips and teeth could capture the lobe of her ear while his nose was lost to the scent of her hair.

One of her hands dropped down between them. Through the cloth of his trousers, she made his cock – which from experience, she very well knew had been hard and ready for her since the first time she had called him _my Lord_ while still downstairs - twitch just by lightly brushing against it.

The title was something of an endearment previously only ever said in private.

"... Are you sure that you won't have Charlie back?"

He released the lobe of her ear only long enough for one word. "Never."

"My Lord ... I believe in economics a commodity also gains value when one of the parties within the transaction desires it more than the other."

How well he knew his wife. "I believe you are right. It does. However ..."

The hand around her waist stole down under her shift to undo the ties of her drawers. As her knickers fell to the floor, she let out a pleased little gasp as first one, but soon two of his fingers began to work on her from the inside.

Here they came to the flaw in her scheme. "... I ask you – which of our want is greater?"

Removing his fingers from her depths, he held up the fingers that had been inside of her, showing her the physical evidence of her desire.

Rather than be suitably abashed to see her moisture glistening on his fingers, while still meeting his gaze, she leaned forward and took the offending digits into her mouth.

Astounded and appalled, Lord Grantham gasped in horror. "Is there no end to your new found wantonness?"

Rather than answer, she went down on her knees taking his trousers and drawers with her.

She trailed a line of kisses down the shaft of his cock before taking the head of it into her mouth.

Taking advantage of her position and her unwillingness to stop to protest, he made quick work of removing all of her hair pins that he might free her crowning glory.

"What happened to my innocent young wife who would not open her mouth to my kisses on our wedding night?"

He lamented, but his body did not complain as she set up a rhythm taking his cock deeper with each passing until he could take it no more.

"You are a Countess. _My Countess._ I will not sully you by spending myself in your mouth as if you were a whore."

"You do provide me with my pin money." She quipped when as the Queen had done following her curtsey at her debut he put his hands under her elbows to help her recover her footing.

As she tried to again kiss him, knowing where her mouth had been – knowing _everywhere_ her mouth had been, he refused.

 _tbc_

A/N Reviews s'il vous plait


	4. Chapter 4

_Hat in Hand_

 _Chapter 4_

As she tried to again kiss him, knowing where her mouth had been – knowing _everywhere_ her mouth had been, he used his more generous height to refuse. Instead, he kissed her brow as Her Majesty had at her debut – an honor unheard of for the daughter of a baronet.

Seemingly undeterred, she moved her mouth to the lobe of his ear. "My Lord, I want to taste you. Are you not the least bit curious what I -"

"-No!" To no avail she had been attempting to coax him into _that_ for some time now.

Moving her mouth down his neck, she offered. "I thought you might prefer it since you are not desirous of more children."

"They are such _nasty_ little beggars always attempting to take your attention from me. I want you, not children of you." He agreed.

She sounded slightly exasperated as she pointed out. "My Lord, surely you realized having the first would have the consequence of the second."

"For nearly six years I did quite well at avoiding consequences before Lord Hepworth took it upon himself to attempt to educate you on the birds and the bees. The audacity of that man! Telling you, _my wife,_ how he might bed you to not leave you with child!"

"The audacity of my husband – that _he_ would bed me in a way that would not leave me with child and _not_ tell me." Lady Grantham countered as she slid his jacket from his shoulders and began upon his shirt buttons.

"There are advantages to taking as a wife a young girl whose mother had passed before telling her of the ways of the world. You were such a good little girl running right to me to tell me what he said to you."

Pausing in her undressing of him, she looked up to meet his eyes. "My Lord, you give me too much credit or rather not enough. I waited until we three were alone in a field and you were both armed to tell you. For five years you let me despair thinking myself barren. I tried to kill you."

"Now that's not fair. I told you I was sure the fault lay with me. Childbirth is a dangerous business. I would just as soon send you to work making matches and matchboxes as willingly let you fall pregnant."

He tried to dismiss the notion that she had tried to do away with him. "You knew I was a quicker draw and a better shot than Hepworth."

Parting the halves of his shirt and running her fingers along his scar, she disputed his words. "A better shot perhaps, but not quite as quick as you needed to be."

"He managed to outdraw me only because having been a party to the conversation you were relaying to me, partway through your words he realized what it was you were going to say. And still he was a lousy shot! It was _most_ ungentlemanly of him all around."

Nipping at her ear, he admonished her. "Afterward you took advantage of me in my weakened state."

"When you lived I had to adapt my plans."

"Like Lilith, you stole from me in the night."

"We are married, my Lord. How can it have been stealing? A husband has rights to his wife. Does not a wife have rights to her husband?"

A point of pride, he felt compelled to point out. "Yes, I admit I have lied and I have connived, but I have _never_ forced my way into your bed."

"Nor I yours. As I recall, my Lord, you were quite willing and eager when I came to the bed in your dressing room."

"Too eager." He fumed at the hazy recollection. In his weakened state, with his wife in the unorthodox, but highly enjoyable position of being astride him, he hadn't lasted long and armed with her newfound knowledge, she hadn't allowed him to shift to expend himself safely outside her. "You tricked me."

Sounding not at all remorseful, she agreed. "Indeed, I did and because of it we have Robert."

Sounding far less pleased than her, he repeated her words. "Yes, and now we have Robert."

In response to her displeased raising of an eyebrow, he pointed out. "You knew how I felt about children when you married me."

"And you knew that I expected a houseful of children when I married you."

Her hands splayed across his chest. "I want children."

"You _have_ children. The bird in the hand, my lovely." His arms wrapped around her tightly now not in desire, but dread. "You have your two little birdies. I have my one. Don't be greedy."

He pleaded with her. "No more little would-be-assassins, I beg of you. You have provided me an heir and you have your sweet, pretty little thing to cuddle."

"We have only the two. We have no spares."

He was as untroubled by that as he had been at having no children. "If something happens to Robert _let_ my brother inherit. I am not so hateful as you. I do not detest my brother and his wife as you do. I would not cut off my nose to spite my face as you would."

A hand to her cheek, he promised her. "Should something happen to Rosamund I will steal you some other woman's labor that you might still have a pretty little thing to cuddle."

"How can you not like our children? I realize you feared for my life while I carried them, but why continue to dislike them once I was safely delivered?"

"Because if I were kind to them or showed them any affection you would deliberately misconstrue it to mean I liked them and wanted more."

To her look of frustration, he added. "And why would I like them? They are my competition for your time and your affection."

"My Lord, how is it possible that you are jealous of our own children?"

"They are nasty little beggars." Lord Grantham repeated. "And such liars to boot. Always complaining of some ailment that they might be taken out of the nursery to spend the night in your bed. Why should _they_ get rewarded for frightening you with their tall tales of being ill by being allowed to spend the night in your bed and your arms while _I_ get cast out as soon as you are done using me for your wicked desires?"

"Tell me, my Lord, if I let you sleep in my bed tonight would you let me keep Charlie?"

"Back to that again, are we?"

Her lips turned down but a moment before she was moving along with her bargaining. "If you are so adamant against more children, there are other things we could do for each other that are equally as pleasurable and don't have the potential for consequences."

And they were back to _that_ again.

He brought their conversation a step back to again warn her. "No more of your tricking me into giving you children. If anything happens to you, I won't leave Robert and Rosamund to Nanny. I will give them to my brother's wife to raise."

It was a new variation on an old threat. The one he had made to her after bullying his way past the doctor, two midwives, and her lady's maid on his way into her bedroom during Rosamund's delivery. Having entered her second day of labor even her young Scot who had earlier so assuredly tried to dismiss his concerns had begun to look worried.

The doctor knew she had suckled Robert herself. It wasn't Lord Grantham's first time to the fair. He knew what stalled labor was and he knew what it meant when he overheard the doctor sending to the village for a wet nurse ' _In the unlikely event one would actually be needed.'_

His proud and beautiful wife had been horrified to be seen by him exhausted, sweaty and ragged looking. Knowing that begging and pleading with sweet words of endearment would not sway his wife, he had threatened her.

He had promised to give Robert and the wretched new one to his mother – a woman Lady Violet so despised that as a condition of their marriage she had required the Dower Countess be moved to the Crawley House in the village so that the two Countesses would not share the Dower House should he predecease his mother.

It had worked. It had rallied her from her exhaustion and within an hour Rosamund had been delivered.

"That awful, _awful_ woman! You wouldn't dare! I would haunt you ever after!"

He asked her quite sincerely. "Is that supposed to deter me? I would want nothing more than to be haunted by you every day and night."

Momentarily forgetting, he let himself be drawn back to her mouth. His hands migrated back to her breasts.

When the kiss ended, he went back to working her nipples with his mouth and one hand. His displaced hand found its way back between her legs.

With a moan, she informed him. "I am ready for you, my Lord."

Again his lips found her ear. "Now tell me - Are you still claiming to champion your young man or are you ready to admit that you are merely wicked?"

 _tbc_

A/N Like? Dislike? Let me know.


	5. Chapter 5

A/N I appreciate all the constructive criticism for the last chapter. The smut was not just for the sake of smut. It did have a plot purpose. Hopefully as I post the next few bits things will fall a little better into place for the reader.

 _Hat in Hand_

 _Chapter 5_

When she turned her back to him, he thought he had again succeeded in offending her, but resting her arms on her vanity and her head on her arms, she bent over that he might take her from behind.

It was not the first time she had offered herself to him that way. Her foreigner must have been very fond of taking her that way.

He knew how her foreigner had made love to her. He knew _exactly_ how her foreigner had made love to her. She had told him upon their return from St. Petersburg the first time she had allowed him into her bed – not in words, but in deeds.

It was obvious in the way she now demanded to be made love to. No longer content to await him in her bed after being undressed by her maid, now she expected to be seduced and undressed by him every time. Kisses not just to her lips, but everywhere and not just once, but again and again after each of her many layers were removed.

Little by little for the past year his wife had been training him to make love to her as her foreigner had.

When she had offered herself to him this way in his study once months before, he had turned her around and lifted her onto the desk. What was the point of having such a beautiful wife if he wasn't going to look at her lovely face as he took his pleasure from her?

When he was not quick enough to respond, she beckoned him. "I would receive you, my Lord."

Admittedly, the angle had advantages. It allowed him to more readily reach all of the places she liked while inside of her and it made his avoidance of her sullied mouth less obvious.

More practically, after his tantrum this afternoon, his wife's bedroom had not a bed – merely a mattress with no covering.

Today, the vanity's mirror allowing them both what they wanted, he acquiesced.

They had been at a stalemate for some time before their journey to Russia.

Having determined his various methods to avoid having her fall with child, his wife had openly declared her unwillingness to perform her wifely duties if he were not actually attempting his husbandly duty.

Another man might not have accepted such an expulsion so easily, but he adored his wife _because_ she was an absolute terror not in spite of it. He could not diminish her by forcing his affection upon her.

Instead he had resolved to wait her out much as she had resolved to wait him out.

The first time she had taken him back into her bed some weeks after their return he knew he was being cuckolded. Not having much choice in the matter, he had gone along with it. Imagine his surprise that it was not for just the one requisite night but that she kept inviting him back into her bed night after night - until suddenly she again wasn't.

While the entire situation was intolerable what he found most galling was that he was given only a week in her bed in exchange for allowing her foreigner's offspring into their nursery. She had fallen pregnant with Rosamund by convincing him that his efforts had failed and she was already with child. She had told him that her Scot had said it was safe for them to continue relations until at least the fourth month.

The fourth night of his return to banishment he had gone to her uninvited. She had been surprised to see him but she hadn't turned him away.

When they had finished he noticed that there was some spotting. Concerned, he had offered to have the doctor brought round. Neither concerned nor alarmed, merely mildly put off, she dismissed the idea.

 _"You should have allowed another day. I would have sent you away, but I thought it had tapered off."_

" _You have had your courses?"_ Working back a month, he had come up with a time line. _"But then you would have last had your courses during the wedding."_

 _"I started a few days before the ceremony. It continued through the first few days we were traveling home."_

 _"But -"_ He stopped himself from asking aloud. It made no sense. If not to cuckold him then why let him back into her bed?

He soon came to her epiphany. While previously his wife in her twisted little mind had always regarded their activities as a means to an end in St. Petersburg she had come to realize that the means could be it's own end. She had discovered what pleasures could be had for the sake of pleasure alone.

Approaching her, he lifted the shift she still wore and teased her entrance, refusing to actually join with her, until his proud little wife who never begged or pleaded, demanded him. "Take me, my Lord."

When he slipped just the tip of his cock inside her, she pressed back into him trying to capture more of him.

Kissing her arched back, he reprimanded her. "So impatient."

As he finally began stroking in and out of her, she gave a pleased sigh. One of her hands soon left the dressing table to reach down to the nub that fascinated her so since their hurried retreat from St. Petersburg. He batted her hand away and put his own fingers there.

Watching her expression in the mirror as her passion overtook her, he was torn between being enthralled at the sight and outraged that she had discovered such things at the hands – amongst other things – of another man.

The mirror had proved a poor substitution. Her foreigner may have been content to merely shift garments aside, but he wanted to see his wife – all of his wife – as he made love to her.

He gave her a few moments to ride out her pleasure before removing himself from within her for the purposes of travel.

Stepping out of his shoes and the garments still pooled at his ankles, he informed her. "I want you on the bed."

Her eyes so recently closed in passion fluttered open as she asked. "The bed that the children have wrecked?"

He had miscalculated his timing – given her too long. Though hardly recovered, she was no longer acquiescent.

"The bed can be remade."

"Can it, my Lord?" Turning to face him, her eyes searched his.

Unable to meet his wife's gaze, with a sigh he looked instead to the havoc he had wreaked.

"If you were looking for his letters I don't keep them."

 _tbc_

All reviews welcome.


	6. Chapter 6

_Hat in Hand_

 _Chapter 6_

"If you were looking for his letters I don't keep them."

While it could hardly be denied that his wife had taken a lover during their time in St. Petersburg, it had never been spoken of openly before.

"I return them. Unopened."

He knew of each and every letter his wife had received. Though in separate piles, their mail shared the same tray. Each morning the butler would first bring him his mail in the dining room before taking the tray to her ladyship's rose garden where his ever contrary wife breakfasted instead of her rooms.

The return addressee was listed as a woman, but they both knew who really wrote the letters inside. He should question why then her foreigner still wrote, but Lord Grantham knew that if it were him a few returned letters would not be enough to put him off.

"I wasn't looking for his letters to you. I was looking for your letter to me. My goodbye letter. When Nanny told me you had gone out with the children and left her behind ..."

Lord Grantham admitted. "... I went looking for you. I found your empty coach. The coachman said you took the children on the train. I thought you had taken the children and ... gone."

His curiosity and insecurities having gotten the better of him, he had taken and read one of the letters from her foreigner. Written in the hand of a woman, it had contained mostly idle chit chat intended to disguise the letter's main intent. The supposed lady had been regretful that Lady Grantham had not been able to travel to Austria the month before while she was there. She had made arrangements to travel to nearby Belgium. Could a meeting be arranged? It was suggested she bring her children as the letter's composer would find it no imposition to have them come along.

Lord Grantham admitted the truth. "I prefer you not take both children when you go out because if you leave one behind I can be assured of your return."

His wife looked at him curiously. "And when I take both the children with me?"

Defeated, he admitted. "I am left to wonder if you will ever return."

At a loss for words – a rare occurrence if ever there were one - his wife said nothing. Eventually, she resorted to the tactic she always used when she had no idea what to do with him. She lifted her shift up and off – revealing all of her to him.

Slipping one arm under her knees and the other behind her back, he carried her to her bed.

Setting her on the bare mattress, he sat beside her. With her copper color hair and her alabaster skin, she looked like a work of art – like a figure from a Botticelli. He was trying to take a moment to simply admire her loveliness when she intruded upon his thoughts.

"If you need to make an example out of him make an example out of him, but don't turn him out. Give Charlie another chance."

Of all the inopportune times! Leave it to his wife. "You and that damn boy! You don't even know where he has been the past two years or what he has been doing!"

"What does it matter where he was or what he did? What matters is that he is here now. He wants to come home."

For the second time that day he raised his voice to her. "No! No! A thousand times no!"

Still she persisted. "He went off and had a taste of the world, but now he wants to come home. Sometimes you have to stray a ways to fully appreciate what you left behind."

"Charlie Carson will never -"

 _"- I'm not talking about Charlie, my Lord. Take me back or cast me out but no more of this in between!"_

He looked down at his beautiful wife laying on the bare mattress of her stripped bed.

He closed his eyes in an attempt to block out the sight of her, but it could not be done. The vision of her remained. She haunted him already.

As he rose off the bed uncertainty tinged her voice. "My Lord?"

As he turned his back to her, her hand reached out to try to clutch at him - to keep him from leaving. "Marion?"

 _tbc_

A/N In the words of Dana Scully – "There are hits and there are misses. And then there are misses." Go ahead and tell me which one this was.


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